Apple Butter Time

One of my YW is selling boxes of apples right now, to finance a service trip for herself. To be helpful, I bought one. But y'all, a box of apples is a lot of apples. A lot. And so, I had to find some ways to use up apples before they all went bad. And so, to the internet! And I found a recipe for apple butter and it is delicious! And it has no sugar added, so you can feel better about eating it all. Let's dive in.
5 lbs apples (people say to get a variety, but honestly, my box had just one kind, golden delicious maybe? So I just did that)
1/4 cup water
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp lemon juice

Chop up the apples, getting rid of the cores. I just used this handy dandy tool:

and then I chopped up the apples from there, leaving the skin on. Then I put them all in my crock pot, and added the water, just to keep everything from sticking anywhere, plus the water sort of helps it all steam a bit. 

Then I just put it on low heat and let it cook for like, 6 hours, stirring it every like, half hour or hour or so, just to keep it all moving. So then, after around 6 hours, it's pretty mushy. So I smashed it down a bit with my spoon and then turned off the crockpot, for about an hour, let it all cool. Then I blended the stuff in the crockpot with my immersion blender, just until it's pretty silky smooth. 

Then, add in some cinnamon sticks! I said two earlier, but I threw in three, why not? Then I pushed them in a little bit, to let them really soak in. 

 So then, I let it cook - uncovered this time, for about another hour and a half, maybe two hours, until you reach your desired thickness. Don't know what you desire? I didn't either! I just went until it looked good and had a good color. Then, stir in the last ingredients, the cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice.
Then, put them into jars! Mine fit into 6 8-oz jars. I didn't seal them (I don't know how to seal them or how to can or anything, that's why) and they look good!

Now I'm just going to give all of these away and that's a great gift!

I hope you make this and love it, because I think it's so tasty and cinnamony. 

A great question I get is, what do you put apple butter on? I use toast. I put it on like, any bread-type item, toast, cornbread, etc. The first time I ever had apple butter was in this delicious Amish restaurant in Florida, and I just loved it. So now I'm glad to make some here! 

Crockpot Chicken Parm

All right all right, Sunday, which means crock pot day. Tonight I chose a new recipe, and gave it a go. And I gotta say, I like it. Let's jump right in.

2 (24-oz.) jars tomato sauce. (I mixed it up and used my regular Paul Newman's, but I did one regular marinara sauce, and one of the garlic sauce, delicious.)
1.5 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts
¼ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
½ tsp. oregano
1 lb. penne pasta
3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
¼ cup parmesan cheese (turns out I didn't have any, so I just used the one in the green can, the sprinkle kind, still worked)

Add the chicken to a 6-quart or larger slow cooker. Sprinkle over the salt, pepper and oregano. Pour the pasta sauce over those.  Cover and cook on LOW for 4-6 hours, without opening the lid during the cooking time. When the slow cooker is done cooking, prepare the pasta on the stove-top according to the package directions. While the pasta is cooking, remove the chicken on to a plate and cut into bite size pieces, the chicken will shred very easy, but I still like to cut it up a bit so there isn't long strings of chicken. Add the chicken back to the sauce. Drain the pasta very well. Add the pasta to the chicken and sauce in the slow cooker. Stir. Flatten the pasta out into an even layer. Sprinkle over the shredded mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese. Cover for 15 more minutes, or until the cheese has melted.

All right, this was delicious. And it made a lot, so be prepared, you can definitely cut the recipe in half, if you have a small crew. I wish I had, because I think I'll be eating this all week. That's all right, it's  delicious enough, I'm all right with it.

How to Clean a Crock Pot

Yesterday, I brought a soup to a friend in the ward, their family’s oven/stove burned and they don’t have one for a while, so we’ve all chipped in. After I dropped off the crockpot of soup over, I noticed, my base was dirty and gross, and needed to be cleaned.

Gross gross gross. So I looked up tips on the internet and for most of them, I didn’t have the right things at home to clean so I went with one that was easy: Just use oven cleaner. So I did. I took the crockpot outside, and sprayed the inside of it liberally until it was coated in foam, and then I let it sit out there for an hour. An hour plus 10 minutes, if we’re being honest, because I had forgotten about it.

Then I brought it back inside, and was supposed to use a sponge to clean it but as it turned out, I had no sponges in the house! Sheesh. I instead grabbed a washcloth, made it wet, and then I just wiped out the inside, and scrubbed at the harder stains. After a few minutes:

Ta-daaaa! It’s clean, and I’m happy with it. I recommend this as a way to clean, in case you’re looking for a way.

Crock Pot Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches

Ok, found the recipe on Pinterest, and just wanted it so hard. We made it today, for dinner, and following the recipe, I’ll give you my critique.

2 1/2 to 3 pounds beef round steak
2 green peppers, sliced thin
2 onions, sliced thin
3 cups beef stock
2 teaspoons garlic salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 envelope dry Italian dressing mix
6 to 8 hoagie buns
Provolone cheese slices

Directions:
Spray crock pot with non-stick cooking spray or use a slow cooker liner. Cut meat into thin strips, place in slow cooker. Add green pepper, onion, stock, garlic salt, pepper and dressing mix. Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours, or high for 3-4 hours.Spoon meat mixture onto toasted buns, top with cheese. You can then put the sandwiches on a baking sheet and bake an additional few minutes to melt the cheese and toast the sandwich.

So, after that long in the crock pot, the bell peppers were basically kaput. Should I make this recipe again, I would actually wait until the last hour or so, and put the peppers in then, so they would still be a little crispy, and not super soggy. But otherwise, this is crazy delicious! It was easy, and really tasty.

To assist the dish, we made parmesan potatoes, also very tasty.

Crock Pot Lasagna

Last night for dinner, I made crock pot lasagna. I’ve never tried it, but I thought, surely it won’t make as much as regular lasagna (since there’s so few of us here) and it’ll be easier. I was right! Here’s the lowdown on the recipe:

2 lbs cooked ground hamburger meat (you could also use turkey)
1/2  onion chopped
2 jars marinara sauce (I mixed sauces, used 1 jar plain marinara, and 1 jar spicy sausage sauce)
1/2 box lasagna noodles (uncooked)
1 (2 lb) tub ricotta cheese
3 cups mozzarella cheese
1 egg (beaten)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Add a little olive oil to a skillet and cook onions until caramelized. Add hamburger meat to onions (you can add some seasonings here if you’d like. I threw in some salt, Italian seasoning, and pepper) until browned, then add marinara sauce. Simmer while making mixture below. Combine ricotta cheese, salt, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, and egg. Spray crock pot with cooking spray (or not, I didn’t) Start layering in the crock pot. Add a layer of meat (doesn’t need to be thick) Then add a layer of uncooked noodles, then a layer of the cheese mixture. You will then repeat those layers one more time. Finish with the rest of the meat sauce and 1-2 cups mozzarella cheese. Cook on low for 3 hours, because if you cook any higher, the noodles will be all burny like. And then, that’s it! Scoop some up with whatever (I used like a small ladle, you can use your best judgment) and that’s that.

I really liked this. I would probably cook it for a little less time, though, when I cook it again. But otherwise, enjoy!

Crock Pot Fajitas

I wanted to use some frozen chicken I had in the freezer today, and after searching my recipes for an idea, I finally came up with this. Crock Pot Fajitas. Of course, I didn’t come up with it, a gal on Pinterest did, but I took it fair and square. The recipe was pretty easy.

1 each medium green, sweet red and yellow pepper, cut into 1/2-inch strips
1 sweet onion, cut into 1/2-inch strips
2 pounds chicken breast, cut into thin strips
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
8 flour tortillas (8 inches), warmed
1/2 cup salsa
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Place peppers and onion in a 5-qt. slow cooker. Top with beef. Combine the water, vinegar, lime juice and seasonings; pour over meat. Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours or until tender. Of course, in my crock pot, it took 4 hours on low, so adjust accordingly. When cooked, scoop into tortillas, top with cheese, and enjoy. Add some sour cream or salsa, if you’d like.

These are really good! I was nervous that the peppers would be soggy and gross, but they really weren’t! I totally recommend them.

Lasagna Soup

I’ve decided that for the duration of the winter that’s just started, I want to have a crockpot meal on Sunday. It warms the house, it makes everything smell delicious, and it’s just so easy to throw everything in a pot and leave it alone for the day. To kick off Crockpot Winter 2013, I made lasagna soup, and it was really easy. Ingredients are:

1 LB ground beef (or, if you want it to be vegetarian, omit this)
3 cups beef broth
1 cup water
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 TB dried parsley
1 TB dried basil
½ cup chopped onion
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 cup V8
2 cups uncooked shell pasta
¼ Tsp pepper
¼ Tsp salt
Shredded mozzarella cheese, optional

In the crockpot, mix together the tomatoes and can of tomato paste. Add broth, beef, garlic, parsley, basic, onion, V8, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 4-5 hours. When there is 30 minutes left of cooking time, add in the cup of water and noodles. Put lid back on and cook for final 30 minutes.

So, I put ours in at 3:00, and added the pasta in at 6:00. I omitted the water, because I was like, this is runny enough, but then when it was finished, it wasn’t soup at all, just a pasta dish. I may add the water, if I cook this again. But it was really good, and I added some mozzarella cheese when I spooned myself up a dish, which I think made it much better.

Slow Cookin’

Well, I finally did it. I broke down and bought a Crock Pot. I’ve wanted one for as long as I can remember, after reading recipes that called for it, trying others’ meals that they’ve done in one, and just hearing about the awesomeness. Finally, yesterday, I caved in, and bought one.

*Note: this is not the actual Crock Pot, just an image I got from the web*

I then bought all the ingredients to make a slow-cooked roast (I got the recipe off the internet, of course) and was excited to make it. So Sunday morning, we chopped up the veggies, concocted a juice of beef broth and spices, and turned it on. Throughout all the day, the house has been smelling delicious. I was really psyched to eat it. Finally, church let me out at 5, we came home, and ate pretty much right away.

It was delicious! It was all soft and tender, and the veggies were delish. There was an attempt to make gravy from juices, etc., but holy cow that did not go well. When I tried it, I couldn’t believe how bad it tasted, so I quickly threw it out. But the meal was good besides that. And now, I’m so excited to try other things. I’ve always wanted to try to make a slow-cooker chili, and so many other things. And now, I finally get the chance, huzzah!